After Death of a President, Tributes Are Set for Capital

By DAVID STOUT and JEFF ZELENY

Published: December 28, 2006

The body of former President Gerald R. Ford will lie in the Capitol this weekend amid tributes marked by considerably less pageantry than the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan in 2004, Congressional officials said Wednesday.

Services for Mr. Ford, the 38th president, who died late Tuesday, will begin Friday in Palm Desert, Calif., with private prayers for the family at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Gregory D. Willard, a Ford family spokesman, said at a news conference.

The next day, his body will be flown to Washington. The hearse is to pause at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in recognition of Mr. Ford's naval service in the Pacific. His state funeral is to be conducted on Saturday evening in the Capitol Rotunda, after which the public will be allowed to file by the coffin.

A service will be held next Tuesday in the Washington National Cathedral.

After the cathedral service, Mr. Ford's body will be flown to Grand Rapids, Mich., where he got his start in national politics. The next day, after services at Grace Episcopal Church there, he will be interred on a hillside near his presidential museum. (Mr. Ford's presidential library is at Ann Arbor, Mich.)

Two senior Congressional officials familiar with the plans for the services said these would include the full military honors that accompany a state funeral. But the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the plans called for a less elaborate ceremony inside the Capitol and leading up to the service than the proceedings for Reagan.

In an unusual feature meant to highlight Mr. Ford's long service in Congress, his body is to lie in repose outside the main door of the House of Representatives and, later, outside the main door of the Senate, said Mr. Willard, the family spokesman.

''I know personally how much those two tributes themselves meant to President Ford,'' Mr. Willard said. Mr. Willard and Terry O'Donnell, who both worked in the Ford White House and remained close to the former president, are organizing the services.

More than most presidents, Gerald Ford was a man of the Congress. He was Republican leader in the House, denied his dream of being speaker by his party's long minority status decades ago. As vice president, he was the president of the Senate.

Like Reagan, who never served in Congress, Mr. Ford was a son of the Midwest. But by personal inclination and design, Mr. Ford was less a performer than Reagan, and he seemed far more comfortable with plain language and a minimum of trappings.

Public officials and politicians of all persuasions were united Wednesday in praising Mr. Ford as a man who could be partisan without being polarizing and as a throwback, in a way, to a time when Republicans and Democrats battled during the day and afterward enjoyed one another's friendship.

''The American people will always admire Gerald Ford's devotion to duty, his personal character and the honorable conduct of his administration,'' President Bush said at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., as he ordered American flags at the White House and ''all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels of the United States'' flown at half-staff for 30 days.

It was not clear Wednesday evening whether Mr. Bush intended to fly to Washington from his Texas ranch to attend the Saturday evening service at the Capitol. The president's schedule was to be announced Thursday.

Democrats, too, remembered Mr. Ford with affection.

''To his great credit, he was the same hard-working, down-to-earth person the day he left the White House as he was when he first entered Congress almost 30 years earlier,'' former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, said in a joint statement.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, called Mr. Ford ''a healer'' who unified the nation after the ordeal of Watergate. ''But we in Michigan hold Jerry Ford in affection and esteem for his lifetime of service, including 13 terms in the House of Representatives,'' Mr. Levin said. ''We take particular pride in this son of Michigan and the manner in which he always treasured his West Michigan roots.''

''Over time,'' Mr. Levin added, ''we will honor his memory in many ways, but one immediate way is to return the Gerald Ford quality of civility to the nation's capital.''

The state funeral for Mr. Ford, details of which were still being worked out, will be only the third in 34 years. Reagan's state funeral in Washington was the first since former President Lyndon B. Johnson's in January 1973.

And Harry S. Truman was laid to rest in his native Missouri in 1972 after a minimum of pomp. For those who like presidential trivia, Truman also died on Dec. 26. Like Mr. Ford, Truman was a man of Middle America who inherited the presidency, was unpopular for a time and was willing to let history be the final judge.

Presidents, former presidents and presidents-elect are entitled to a state funeral, which include military pallbearers, military music, gun salutes, a flag-covered coffin and other embellishments. They are typically attended by kings, queens, prime ministers and other high foreign officials. Perhaps the most famous state funeral in United States history -- and an indelible memory for those of a certain age -- was that for President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Some presidents and their families have chosen less elaborate farewells. Richard M. Nixon, driven from office by the scandals that vaulted Mr. Ford to the White House, was buried in a simple ceremony at his presidential library in Yorba Linda, Calif., in 1994. The rites for Franklin D. Roosevelt were held at the family home in Hyde Park, N.Y.

Justice John Paul Stevens, whom Mr. Ford nominated for the Supreme Court in 1975, called him ''a wise president who had the courage to make unpopular decisions that would serve the country's best interests in the long run.''

''Time has proved that his decision to pardon Richard Nixon was such a decision,'' Justice Stevens said in a statement issued by the court. ''We mourn his passing but remember his all-American career with admiration, affection and total respect.''

Justice Stevens's ''all-American'' allusion was to Gerald Ford's football prowess at the University of Michigan. Mr. Ford was the frequent butt of jokes about his supposed clumsiness, even though he was among the most athletically gifted of presidents.

Justice Stevens is the only member of the Supreme Court to be chosen by Mr. Ford, and he is now the longest serving. Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld both served as chief of staff to President Ford.

''President Ford was a man of great decency and towering integrity,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said Wednesday. ''He was a patriot who left a budding law career to join the United States Navy in World War II. I was privileged to serve with him in the Congress and saw firsthand his pride in our country and his deep respect for our system of government.''

Photos: American flags on the National Mall flew at half-staff yesterday in honor of former President Gerald R. Ford, the nation's 38th president. (Photo by Michael Temchine for The New York Times); Outside the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., well-wishers left candles and condolence messages for the former president. (Photo by Jeff Kowalsky/European Press Agency)(pg. A30)

Chart: ''Six Days of Mourning''
Funeral plans for President Gerald R. Ford.

All times are Eastern Standard Time.

FRIDAY, DEC. 29
Palm Desert, Calif.

3:20 p.m. Prayer service for the family at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church.

4:15 p.m. Close friends and guests arrive for a private visit.

7:20 p.m. Public repose begins.

SATURDAY
Palm Desert; Washington

12 p.m. Departure ceremony at St. Margaret's.

5:20 p.m. Hearse travels toward the Capitol; pauses at the World War II Memorial.

6:20 p.m. Repose at the House door.

7 p.m. State funeral at the Capitol Rotunda, after which the body lies in state.

SUNDAY
Washington

MONDAY, JAN. 1, 2007
Washington

Mr. Ford's body continues to lie in state at the Rotunda.

TUESDAY
Washington; Grand Rapids, Mich.

8:30 a.m. Repose at the Senate door.

9:15 a.m. Departure ceremony at the east steps of the Senate.

10:30 a.m. Services at National Cathedral.

3:30 p.m. Coffin arrives at Mr. Ford's presidential museum in Michigan. After a ceremony, the body lies in repose.

WEDNESDAY
Grand Rapids

2 p.m. Services at Grace Episcopal Church. Mr. Ford will be interred on a hillside north of the presidential museum.